Shattered (18 page)

“Guatemala is a beautiful country. I guess she could probably tell you stories about the things that go on there.”

“She's told me stories about growing up,” I said. “Has she told you stories about the disappeared?”

I shook my head. What was he talking about?

“Not surprised she hasn't. Who wants to talk of those things?”

I didn't know what he meant. “So you were telling me about something your mother told you.”

“Yeah, that's right. My mother would say to me, Jacques, the world is nothing but a battle between God and the Devil, between good and evil. A constant battle. In Rwanda I saw evil win the battle.”

Jack, I mean
Jacques,
got up from the chair. He struggled to get to his feet and staggered. For a second I thought he was going to tumble over backwards before he regained his balance.

“You see that jacket?” he said, pointing to a coat lying on the ground beside one of the tents.

“Yeah.” That was a strange question.

“When I see it do you know what I think? I think it's a body. I can't see a shirt or even a rag lying there without thinking there's a body underneath. Did you notice where they had piled up branches by the playground, branches they'd pruned from dead trees?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“When I see them I don't see branches, I see limbs …human limbs … I see arms and legs, cut off and stacked like firewood because that's what I've seen. Those are memories that are seared into my mind.”

“I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to bring all that back.” “You didn't bring it back because it never went away,”he said. “It won't ever go away, no matter how hard I try to forget, no matter what I do or think … but maybe that's right.
Somebody
has to remember. Somebody has to grieve for the loss. Somebody.”

It was then that I noticed that he was crying. Tears were freely flowing down his cheeks. I wanted to say something, do something, put my arm around him, but I just stood there feeling awkward and stupid and helpless.

“And do you know what the worst part of the whole thing was?” he asked.

I couldn't even imagine which part from all the others could be the worst.

“None of it had to happen. We could have stopped it, we saw it coming, and they wouldn't listen.”

“Who … who wouldn't listen?” I was struggling to form words.

“The United Nations. They sent us to perform a mission and then wouldn't let us do what was needed. They wouldn't give us the men or the equipment, or the permission to do what we
knew
had to be done.” He wiped the tears away with the back of a dirty sleeve. “Just a few hundred more men, more ammunition for our guns, permission to seize the arms we knew were being built up that were eventually used in the genocide, a plane to jam
the radio signals of that station that was spewing out hate and violence, the orders to capture the key men—the
devils
—who orchestrated the massacres. All of this could have been done, was within our reach, but they would not let us. And do you know why?”

I shook my head ever so slightly. Not only didn't I have an answer I was so transfixed that I could hardly budge.

“Racism,” he said, the word hardly audible. “This genocide was an act of complete and utter racism.”

“But … but you said that the groups, the two main groups, were both black, were almost the same,” I said.

“The racism did not involve them. It involved
us
. The United Nations knew what was going on. The United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, Canada. We all knew, but we did not step in. Who cares if a bunch of savages, a faceless mass of ignorant blacks, get killed? So what? It's just less of them to die of starvation, or AIDS, or some other disease! Less of them to have to feed and take care of! Who cares?” he yelled and his face was a mask of anger and hatred. I stepped back. “We stood there, helpless … no, worse than helpless. We stood by and were witness to the atrocities we couldn't stop.”

He picked up a stick and poked the embers of the fire. I knew his actions had less to do with tending to the flames and more to do with trying to compose himself.

“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing,” Jacques said.

“What?”

“Edmund Burke. For evil to triumph all that is required is for good men to do nothing. In Rwanda I served with some of the best, most noble men I have ever
been privileged to know. We tried to do something. We wanted to do something. We were not allowed. Even worse, we were not even allowed to turn away. We were forced to watch. Watch as churches turned from places of sanctuary to scenes of carnage, watch as streets became painted red with blood, where the bodies were so many that they were carried away in dump trucks, where torn and tattered human beings were left to die on corners or in fields, where the hospitals couldn't hope to help the masses that were brought there. I have seen so much … so very much …”

He started to cry again. He looked up at me. “You have to know that we tried … we really tried.”

“I know you did. You did everything you could do.” “We provided sanctuary, places where we could protect some people. We arranged convoys where people could be taken through the lines to safety. We went out every day and saved some people from mobs, supervised those convoys, putting our lives in the middle, willing to lay down our lives to save those people. We couldn't stop it … but we slowed it down … just a little.”

He started to cry even harder. “You have to know that we tried … we really tried.” He choked out the words between the sobs.

“I know you did. You did everything you could do.” His entire body shook violently like he was going to become physically sick. He took a deep breath. “We did our best.”

“I know you did.”

“You know, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me. Sometimes
I
have trouble believing it. I think back to
all the things we did, the things we didn't do, the things we could have done, or should have done, or might have done. I try to remember the lives that were saved—that
we
saved. Instead all I can remember is the victims. The countless number of victims.”

“They became statistics,” I said, recalling my teacher's words—the words of Joseph Stalin … Joseph Stalin, the mass murderer.

“I try to understand the numbers,” Jacques said. “I think about 9/11, about the planes crashing into the twin towers. What a tragedy.”

I nodded my head. “I still think about that some times.” My parents both worked in office buildings, and the images of those planes crashing into the buildings and then the towers tumbling down was so clear in my mind.

“Think about that happening and then the next day two more planes crashing into two more towers. And then it happened the next day, and the next and the next. But it didn't just happen for a week. It happened every day for
265
days in a row. If you can imagine that then you can imagine the number of people that were killed in Rwanda.”

“That's … that's almost impossible to comprehend.” “It is. And for us, in Rwanda, it was like watching the planes crashing and going to the airport and telling them not to let any more planes leave, but nobody listened to us and two more planes took off and crashed. And we went back to warn them and another two planes took off, and two more the next day, and the next …” He let his sentence trail off.

I stood there too stunned and scared and confused to know what to say or even if I
should
try to say something.

Standing in front of me was this man—this big man, this man who had been so strong, so powerful, so noble, and now was just this, and I knew why he had become what he had become. He was just another victim of Rwanda.

Seventeen

I SAT BOLT UPRIGHT
in bed, fighting the urge to scream out … It was just a dream … just a nightmare. My body shuddered and I struggled to slow down my racing heart. It had seemed so real … no … so
surreal
. Those three thugs had been chasing me through the park, waving machetes at me, trying to cut off my limbs. And I ran and I ran to try and get away from them, but I couldn't lose them. And as I ran there were bodies and blood, torn limbs piled like firewood. And there among the bodies was Jacob, those soft brown eyes staring up at me, silently pleading with me to save him, but who was going to save me? And then there was Jacques. His words, his voice, the things he'd said to me. It was all so awful.

Why had I gone to speak to him? Why hadn't I just left well enough alone? There was nothing for me to gain in knowing any of this. I was better off before. It wasn't like knowing changed anything. It didn't make anything better for anybody else. It just made it worse for me.

There was no point in even pretending I was going to be able to go to sleep. I threw off the covers and climbed out of bed. I'd left my computer on and the screen saver swirled out a pattern of light that led me across my room. I opened the door. My way was now lit by the little night
light glowing from downstairs. Quietly, so as not to disturb anybody, I went down the stairs. I started for the kitchen, stopped, and then turned around and went to the front door. I wanted to make sure it was locked. I jiggled the handle. It was locked. I headed back for the kitchen, flicking on the light. I opened the fridge and pulled out the milk pitcher.

“Can't sleep?”

I jumped into the air, spun around, and almost dropped the milk. It was Berta.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” she said.

“I wasn't scared. Just startled.” This certainly hadn't made my heart beat any slower. “I tried to be quiet. Did I wake you?”

“You know me, I hear sounds even when there are no sounds.”

“Would you like a glass of milk too?” I asked, holding up the pitcher.

“Warm milk would be nice.”

“Ughhh!”

“Warm,
chocolate
milk,” Berta said. She opened up a cupboard and pulled out a big container of hot chocolate. “Well?”

“That would be okay.”

She filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove while I grabbed two mugs and put them on the table.

“So what's stopping
carino mio
from sleeping?”

“Too many thoughts.”

“What thoughts?”

“About people … about the way people treat each other.”

“Most people treat each other well,” Berta said.

“And others treat them like they're nothing … less than nothing … There's an evil at work.”

“Evil is a strong word.”

“What other word would you use to describe the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda?”

“Those responsible for the disappeared in Guatemala,” Berta said softly.

I looked up at her. She had turned away. She was standing, staring at the kettle, waiting for it to boil.

“Berta?” I asked.

She kept staring at the kettle.

“My friend, the soldier, the homeless man, he said something to me about the disappeared. He said you'd know about them.”

“I know.” Again the words were so soft. She was still looking away.

“Berta … you don't have to tell me anything … we can just have our hot chocolate.” To be honest I didn't know if I was trying to protect her or myself.

The kettle started to whistle and she took it off the burner. I put two heaping spoonfuls of the hot chocolate powder into each cup and Berta poured in the boiling water. The tinkling of the spoons against the mugs was the only sound. Berta sat down at the table, opposite me.

“The things I could say would not help either of us sleep,” she said.

“I don't think I'm going to be sleeping much either way.”

“Me neither.” She dipped her spoon into her drink, blew on it, and sampled a little bit. “There are things I don't talk about.”

“You don't have to talk about it.” I was feeling like I'd heard too much already.

“I don't have to talk. I don't want to talk. Maybe it is time that I
should
talk. Maybe it is not too soon any more.” She blew on her hot chocolate. “What do you know about Guatemala?”

“I know some things. Of course I know it's where you're from. It's in Central America. It's by the equator and hot. It's poor. I know that you're supporting half the children in the country.”

Berta laughed. “I'm helping to support seven children.”

Berta had seven foster children that she sponsored by making monthly donations to an orphanage in Guatemala. I knew my parents paid her pretty well, but that was still a lot of money to send away every month—not that she'd ever complain. I also knew if my parents did pay her more she'd probably just support another child in the orphanage.

“Don't you also send them extra money all the time for the other kids in the orphanage?” I asked.

“Occasionally … Christmas … Easter … when they need some extra help.” She took a sip from her hot chocolate. “Your parents made a very generous contribution last Christmas.”

“They did?”

“I think they didn't want to make a deal of it … Maybe I shouldn't have even mentioned it,” she said.

I was a little surprised … but then again, what was a few dollars or even a few
thousand
dollars to them? I wanted to change the subject, get it away from my parents.

“So with the extra donations there are more than seven children you take care of.”

“More in some ways,” she agreed. “Although I like to think I have eight children. The seven in Guatemala and one here.” She reached across the table and patted my hand. I felt all tingly inside.

“I'll tell you some other things about my country that I don't talk about. For thirty-six years my country was in a civil war. You know what that means,
si
?”